


Moon Tides

by onepercent



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mild Angst, Small ocean tourist town au, Vaguely selkies, fashion designer by day bartender by night grantaire, it rains a lot I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onepercent/pseuds/onepercent
Summary: A strange man in a fur coat visits the bar R works at. R falls quick and hard, but the man is as mysterious as ever.





	Moon Tides

**Author's Note:**

> I low key hate this and low key at very happy with it. Idk either. Wrote it bc I am so bored—I appreciate and look forward to breaks from school but i go a little crazy having nothing to do. Oh well. Not edited very well as per usual, and plz ignore if there is any tense changes bc I kept finding myself changing from present to past which is annoying, so sorry about that. 
> 
> Enjoy!!

It is raining, outside the Corinthe. 

It rains most days outside the Corinthe. One would think that a small, mostly tourist-fueled town on the beach would get plenty of sunshine and amiable weather, but alas, the skies are plagued with a cropping of clouds that never seems to fully disappear. That’s how one can tell the difference between a visitor and a local—the visitor complains about the weather ruining their vacation all night long, whereas the local silently appreciates the soft sigh of cool mist that settles over the winding cobblestone paths early in the morning. 

R is definitely one of the latter. He moved into town at the insistence of his parents, who had seen the town in a travel catalogue and thought that its classic weathered houses and relaxing ocean views would be the perfect muse for his intricate designs. R agreed, mostly because he wanted to please them, at least a little bit—his father originally wasn’t too keen on the idea of R pursuing fashion as a career, but now grudgingly supports his only son in his endeavors, though not without a fair share of his wife’s urging. R appreciates their efforts, he really does, especially because they had paid a fair amount of his rent, at least in the beginning, but unfortunately it was not the artistic oasis he was awaiting. Upon this realization, he snagged a job at one of the clubs downtown, the Corinthe, as bartender.

It could be worse, he thinks, as he wipes down the sticky surface of the bar. He still has time to design and sew dresses for commissions online in his free time, and although it isn’t the inspiration goldmine his parents had expected, there is something to be said of the way the rain hits his kitchen window on a cozy Sunday evening as he makes his dinner. It’s not perfect, he thinks, but it could certainly be a lot worse. 

 

Just as he finishes scrubbing off a few particularly stubborn stains, he feels a gust of fresh air hit his face. The doors open as a new stream of people flood into the Corinthe, disrupting the rather tepid flow of air around the bar. It’s Friday night, after all, and the Corinthe is one of the only good nightclubs in town, so the dance floor is packed and everyone has a drink in their hand. The doors flap shut after a little while, and most of the new guests blend seamlessly with the other patrons. However, one man stands out as he pushes his way through the throngs of people to the only empty stool at the bar, where he sits down with a huff.

Upon first glance, the man is extraordinarily attractive. His white-blond hair shines like the moon as it reflects the low lights of the club and shifts like breaking waves across his shoulders, where it curls enticingly into large, ribbony ringlets. His face is perfectly symmetrical and dotted with youthful freckles. His eyes are a dark brown, R can assume, although they appear black in the low light and are partly covered by thick lashes that cast long shadows over his cheeks. His outfit is impeccable--a crisp white button-up and a shiny silk tie--but is thrown off by a large, very expensive and very soft-looking fur coat thrown almost haphazardly across his shoulders. R almost begrudges him for this, as he doesn’t even want to imagine the amount of whatever animal would have to die for such a beautiful coat, but even he can’t deny how mesmerizing it is as it shifts and shimmers in the darkness of the club. 

R, taken aback by the man’s allure, almost forgets to take his drink order, but is snapped out of his reverie by a group of bachelorettes across the bar waving at him for another round of shots. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he says to the man, who responds with the barest of nods, before he rushes to serve the women. Their drunken shouting and very, er, forward flirting cannot distract him from the beauty of the man a few feet away. R keeps looking over his shoulder as he pours the bachelorettes’ drinks--they don’t seem to notice, but neither does the man, who stares almost blankly at the mass of sweaty dancers hollering over the loud music and grinding up on one another. 

“Hi, what can I get for you this evening?” R asks, ever the professional. The man startles before meeting R’s eyes. His pupils are huge, and R cannot make out where they end and the iris begins.

“Hello,” he says quietly, and R has to lean in to hear him speak. “Just a water please. Thanks.”

R nods and fills a glass. The man turns back around and keeps glancing around the dancefloor. He startles again when R sets his water in front of him, but not as much as last time. “Thanks,” he says and takes a sip. 

R pauses. “You should go join them,” he muses, absentmindedly scrubbing at the inside of a wine glass.

“What?” says the man, aloof but stiff.

“Your friends,” R clarifies, pointing to the people he saw come in with the man. “Why aren’t you dancing with them? They shouldn’t leave you all alone at the bar, to order a water, no less.”

The man pulls the coat tighter around his shoulders and crosses his arms across the tabletop, revealing smooth arms, white sleeves rolled up, and his hands—unwrinkled, uncalloused, and nails delicately painted smooth grey. “I don’t like dancing very much,” he says, mouth going sour. “I go with them because they have fun, and they don’t stop pestering me until I go with them.”

R laughs. “Sounds like some pretty good friends to me!”

The man’s face relaxes. “Well, of course they’re great,” he says. “I just think this is a bit of a waste of time.”

R raises an eyebrow. “Whatever do you mean?”

The man grimaces at the patrons around him, most of which veer dangerously closely to the black-out drunk side of the tipsy scale. “People,” he clarifies. “I don’t like to be around all these people, doing stupid things on Friday evenings to waste their lives away, drinking until they pass out or go home with a stranger they don’t remember meeting the next day. There’s much better things to do with your time,” he finishes, punctuated by second dignified sip of his drink. 

R frowns. “It’s a club. I don’t really know what you are expecting, people are just here to have fun and forget their miserable lives for a while.”

The man huffs. “Perhaps people’s lives would be less miserable if they actually—”

Just then, another man approaches the blond from behind, swaying a little as he grabs at his friend’s forearm. “En-jol-ras, you can’t just sit here all night, brooding with the bartender!” he shouts over the pumping music. He turns to R. “Sorry about him, he never wants to go out with us, he’d rather stay at home reading or thinking or swimming—”

“Swimming!” R exclaims dramatically, a hand over his heart. “It’s twelve degrees outside, you’d freeze!”

The man—Enjolras—shoots a glare at his friend, who smiles sheepishly. Enjolras clears his throat. “I’m a professional swimmer,” he clarifies, barely.

“He’s a real natural,” his friend says earnestly with a toothy grin. Enjolras swats him on the shoulder.

“You should go dance,” says R, realizing the amount of customers that are waiting for drinks. “I’m far too boring for you, you should go have fun with your friends.”

“Thank you,” says the man, who then points at R’s chest. “I like you. What’s your name?”

“R,” says R. The man extends his hand over the bar, which R shakes. It is firm, but sweaty. 

“I’m Courfeyrac and this is Enjolras,” says Courfeyrac enthusiastically before turning to Enjolras, who is looking very much like he would rather not be there. “Now you come dance, you don’t get to come up here very often so you’re going to have fun! And take your coat off, it’s far too hot—“

Enjolras just tightens it around his shoulders, pulling at the lapels. “No,” he says sternly, batting his friend’s hands away. “It’s going to get lost, what if it gets stolen—” R can understand that sentiment. He wouldn’t want someone to steal such a beautiful coat either, especially if it is as expensive as it looks.

Courfeyrac ignores Enjolras’s protest, pulling the coat off his shoulders and throwing it at R, who catches it, but just barely. It’s as smooth and soft as he would have thought, and the fur reflects the dim lights like the serene surface of the ocean on a clear night. “Nobody’s going to steal it,” Courfeyrac says with finality. “R is going to put it behind the bar, and nothing is going to happen to it. Right, R?”

R nods, tucking it away, far from any of the alcohol, should any of it spill on its gleaming fur. Enjolras glares at him for a bit before deflating, and he lets himself be pulled away from the bar.

 

He doesn’t come back to the bar for the rest of the night. Courfeyrac and some of his other friends do, however, and R watches in amusement between customers as they make Enjolras drink increasingly outrageous mixed drinks. The club hits its peak sometime around one am, and after that point there are too many people to serve for Grantaire to keep sneaking glances at the beautiful blond. He is caught in a perpetual cycle of whiskey and ciders, and by the time he can catch his breath at closing time, he realizes that Enjolras never came back for his coat behind the counter.

 

“Fuck,” says R emphatically. 

“What?” says Eponine from where she is mopping away rotten fruity daiquiris. She works as the DJ some nights and a bartender others and a cleaning lady early in the morning always. Sometimes her little brother Gavroche comes and plays Pokemon in one of the booths because she can’t leave him alone at their apartment when their sister Azelma is out doing whatever teenage girls do. Tonight is one of those nights, and R has been absentmindedly humming along with the tinny music of the kid’s DS.

“The hottest guy in the world—you think I’m joking but I’m not—left his full fur coat behind the bar,” he laments, pulling it out. It shimmers just like it did a few hours ago, but seems smaller now that it isn’t resting on Enjolras’ slim shoulders.

Eponine frowns and abandons her mop to walk over to where R is holding it. She pets it. “Holy shit,” she says. “That literally is the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Gavroche materializes behind her. (Seriously, R swears that the kid must be magic from the way he can just show up out of nowhere.) “Let me touch, let me touch,” he begs, reaching his hands over the counter. R shrugs—what harm could letting him pet it be—and Gavroche’s little fingers drag smoothly over the coat. “Woah,” he says. “Cool.”

R sets it down on the freshly-washed bar and turns to Eponine. “How am I going to give it back?” he frowns. “All I know is his name, and though this isn’t exactly a big city, it’d still be pretty impossible to find him.”

“Just wait until he comes back,” Eponine shrugs. “It doesn’t look cheap, so he’ll probably be back as soon as the bar opens to get it back. No big deal.”

 

R sighs. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Eponine smiles wolfishly. “As per usual.”

R grins back and turns back to the surface of the bar so he can put the coat back, but it’s gone. Instead, it’s currently being worn by little Gavroche, who prances around the perimeter of the dancefloor. The coat is far too big on him and drags behind, surely collecting some of the dust they had yet to sweep.

R’s eyes widen. “Give that back, Gavroche,” he says sternly.

Eponine grits her teeth, the very picture of irritated, and goes to wrangle in her brother. “We don’t take things that aren’t ours, Gavroche, give it back to R—”

Unfortunately, at this moment, Gavroche’s foot catches on the bottom of the coat that trails behind him, and he falls ungracefully to the floor. It is impossible to miss the large ripping sound that seems to echo around the walls of the empty Corinthe.

R goes very pale very quickly. “Fuck,” he says emphatically.

 

R tucks the coat underneath his own as he sprints home, unwilling to ruin it even more in the heavy morning mist. Thankfully, he realizes as he shuts the door to his apartment and gingerly sets the coat on his rickety sewing table, the rip is clean and straight and extends for about fourteen inches from the base of the coat. The fur is far too thick to use his sewing machine, but it also will be thick enough to cover the stitch R will use to sew it back up. He calms himself with a few deep breaths. For all R likes his self-deprecating jokes, not even he will deny that he’s a pretty good tailor—Enjolras will never know the difference. 

 

He doesn’t finish before the bar opens. The fur is incredibly difficult to work with and keeps getting in the way--his needle gets stuck or the thread becomes tangled, and more than once he has to put it down to calm his shaking hands. Part of him wants to give up, just apologize to Enjolras and reap the consequences, but the other, more financially-aware side of him knows that he can’t pay for repairs for it, much less a new one, if that’s what Enjolras would want. He sets the coat down, defeated and about half-way done, before his shift at the Corinthe. He’ll just have to admit it to Enjolras, he sighs to himself. He’ll tell Enjolras what happened and promise he’ll finish fixing it soon or something, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that he’s exhausted from working all day, and his shoulders droop as he pulls on a jacket to brave the rain.

 

Surprisingly, Enjolras isn’t there right when they open. In fact, several hours pass before he can spot the sparkling blond man again. He approaches the bar and orders another water. He seems much less imposing without his coat on, and almost acts it, too. He banters more with R and doesn’t stare longingly after his friends as they dance behind him. If anything, R catches him staring at R himself more often, which is strange, but he brushes it off as waiting for R to give him back his coat or something. Maybe he’s just too polite to ask, he thinks as he returns to talk to Enjolras after serving a large group of bulky men across the bar. He sure seems to be in a better mood than yesterday.

They talk for hours. R gets distracted multiple times by the soft resoluteness of Enjolras’ voice, and Eponine has to hipcheck him to get him to fill other patron’s orders. As it nears midnight, Enjolras is truly all R can think about, all worries about the coat completely gone. Enjolras hasn’t mentioned it, so R won’t either.

Eventually, Enjolras stands up from the barstool he’s been occupying all night. “Leaving so soon?” R teases. Enjolras just rolls his eyes and leans close, close enough that R can finally see the tiny bits of brown that speckle his black eyes.

“When are you off?” he asks lowly. R about drops the drink he’s pouring.

“What?”

“When are you off,” Enjolras repeats. “I think you’re really hot, and you think I’m really hot, so when are you off?”

His voice sends a shiver down R’s spine. This was definitely not how he thought this night would be going. Enjolras waits expectantly, as if R isn’t contemplating if this is just some elaborate prank concocted to make him look like a fool. He checks his watch. 

“Shit,” he mutters. “I still have like three more hours.” 

Enjolras huffs and pouts. It is undeniably cute. R mentally flicks through his calendar. “I get off early on Wednesday though, at eleven. You could meet me here, then?”

Enjolras nods resolutely. “I’ll be here tomorrow, too, and the day after that.”

R nods. He appreciates Enjolras’ forwardness.

 

Enjolras keeps his word. He shows up the next few nights leading up to Wednesday, always only ordering water. He continues to talk with R as much as he can as he runs between customers, his voice quiet but somehow rising above the intense music and drunken chattering. On Monday night, though, they get into an argument about something stupid R can barely remember. Enjolras’ voice rises, as does R’s and both of their faces turn red as they yell across the bar. Thankfully it’s the least busy day of the week and there’s only a few other people sipping beers in the corner, but R is still a little embarrassed he let himself get so riled up and possibly ruin what he has with such an amazing guy. Enjolras still comes the next day, though, and he’s the one who starts the argument this time. Surprisingly, R finds himself enjoying it—it’s a brief escape from the monotony of dealing with patrons, and Enjolras is extraordinarily smart. From the small grin gracing his perfect mouth, Enjolras seems to enjoy it, too.

Wednesday evening comes and R is definitely not nervous at all. He finished the coat this morning and he knows that it’s impossible to detect his stitching through all the thick fur, but the thought of Enjolras being pissed beyond imaginable still lingers heavily in his mind. As he awaits Enjolras’ arrival at the bar, more thoughts start to plague him. What if Enjolras doesn’t really like him, and this really is just an extremely long practical joke? What if Enjolras is disappointed by R? 

Thankfully, Enjolras shows up not long after R starts this mental breakdown. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, grabbing at R’s arm.

“I thought you weren’t one for going home with a stranger you won’t remember the next day,” R teases as he unties his apron. 

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “You’re hardly a stranger.”

R just shrugs giddily at that and lets Enjolras drag him outside. It’s one of the few days all week that it isn’t raining—instead, the dark skies are clear and the stars twinkle enticingly. R admires their reflection in Enjolras’ brown eyes before pushing him up against the outside wall of the Corinthe. 

“Come here,” Enjolras demands before wrapping his arms around R’s shoulders and bringing him into a kiss. It is hot and almost frantic and warms R down to his toes, combatting the harsh January cold. They make out for a while, until someone across the street wolf whistles at them and R pulls back.

“Yours or mine,” R breathes.

“Yours,” Enjolras replies. “Definitely yours.”

 

The sex is spectacular. R is almost embarrassed by the abundance of mannequins and dress forms that litter his apartment, but then Enjolras pulls him in for another heated kiss and he suddenly doesn’t really care. Enjolras’ body is perfect, as expected. His skin is smooth and unmarred (except for a razor thin scar extending from the base of his spine to the middle of his back—“swimming accident,” Enjolras explains before letting out a high-pitched groan as R does that thing with his teeth on his—) and he is so wonderfully responsive underneath him that R can barely breathe. It feels less like sex and more like making love, R realizes halfway through. He kinda is a little in love with Enjolras, he will admit—the man is smart and passionate and his face isn’t too bad either.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against Enjolras’ neck which is long and trembling and covered in glimmering sweat. “God, Enjolras, you’re…” Enjolras moans beneath him, and that’s that. 

 

A few minutes later they are basking in the cool moonlight through the window when R remembers the coat. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” says Enjolras, rolling over onto his side to face R. His lips are red and bitten and his cheeks are flushed. He is gorgeous.

“I have your coat that you left at the Corinthe, remember?” R says, trailing a hand through Enjolras’ soft, unruly curls. “My friend’s brother, though, he tripped on it, and—”

Enjolras kisses him, giving no indication that he’s heard what R said. R shrugs mentally and succumbs to the kiss, and they melt together underneath the covers.

He is about to fall asleep when he says “hey” again against Enjolras’ lips. Enjolras hums in response. 

“Stay,” mumbles R. “I’ll make pancakes for breakfast, and I can take you on a proper date for lunch.” 

Enjolras looks up at R for a quick moment—and his pupils are so black, R can’t see any of the brown from before—and just tucks himself underneath R’s chin and cuddles closer, which R takes as a yes. He smiles, even in his dreams.

 

When he wakes, his arms are empty, his bed long cold, and the coat is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor R. Did Enjolras ever love you or was he just trying to get into your pants so he could return to the ocean.......the world may never know.......
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and motivate me to write more. If you enjoyed it even a little bit then please do either (or both).


End file.
